The initiative “Women for Digital Health” will provide an ecosystem for encouraging women in leadership positions for Digital Health. The shift from manager to senior manager is where women in healthcare experience the biggest decline. The gender distribution of the healthcare workforce shows a definite numerical advantage for men in the physicians and healthcare workforce, whilst women exceed men in the category of nurses. Even though there are more women than men enrolling in the healthcare industry as students, gender parity is still not reflected in leadership positions in healthcare.
Fewer female executives mean fewer female role models for women just beginning their careers. Hence, strong role models and a supportive work environment are crucial to promoting female engagement. We need to address this from an ecosystem perspective, hence this initiative, ‘Women for Digital Health’, which will focus on providing an ecosystem for encouraging women in leadership positions. Digital Health Associates and its various SBUs will focus and invest in encouraging and supporting women to join Digital Health and help move upwards in the hierarchy to take up leadership roles in Digital Health. Given that digital health will become the nervous system of healthcare delivery, women leaders will lead in shaping the future of healthcare.
“Time will not solve the leadership gender gap, but our efforts and actions can.”